The Deputy Director-General of the Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC), Alexander Twum-Barimah, has explained the respective roles of Customs officers and officials of Meridian Port Services (MPS) in the scanning of containers at Ghana’s ports.

Speaking on Newsfile on Saturday, September 26, 2026, Twum-Barimah said only Customs officers and MPS officials are stationed in the scanning room where containers are screened for suspicious items.

He explained that while the scanning equipment generates images of the contents of containers, Customs officers are responsible for analysing the images and investigating any abnormalities detected during the process.

“If not for anything, at least, you’ll go through scanning at MPS, and the scanning room has only Customs officers aside from MPS officials,” he said.

Twum-Barimah said the scanners are designed to alert officers monitoring the equipment whenever anything unusual is detected inside a container.

“Our scanner is supposed to tell you anything that it sees and, as I said, if it sees anything abnormal, it will prompt those who are viewing it at the backend,” he explained.

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According to him, officers are expected to act on such alerts by determining the nature of the abnormality and, where necessary, conducting a physical examination of the container.

“When it prompts you, you are supposed to find out what is really wrong and that abnormality; more or less, you have to do a physical examination and see what the scanner is prompting you with.

“These containers went through scanning, and that is established, and that is why we have arrested those Customs officers to explain to us how come the containers went through scanning, and yet they didn’t arrest or see anything wrong with them,” he indicated.

He said the arrest of the Customs officers forms part of efforts to establish how the containers passed through the scanning process before subsequently being linked to narcotics seizures.

His comments follow recent narcotics seizures involving containers that had gone through the scanning process, raising questions about how the suspected abnormalities were not detected.

MRA/EB

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